


The Right Thing

by SomethingProfound



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Character Study, M/M, i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-29
Updated: 2017-08-29
Packaged: 2018-12-21 09:37:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11941371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SomethingProfound/pseuds/SomethingProfound
Summary: Jacob Taylor was a man who’d always tried to do the right thing.





	The Right Thing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [alenkoblue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alenkoblue/gifts).



Jacob Taylor was a man who’d always tried to do the right thing. There was a lot of things wrong with the galaxy even before the Reapers had kicked the galaxy’s door in, and he’d just wanted to do something good. That was why he’d joined the Marines - because if being a biotic and a good shot was the way he could help, that was what he was gonna do. That was why he’d left the Marines for the Corsairs, in the hope that they could actually get something done, that he wouldn’t have to watch anymore slavers escape over the border where he couldn’t follow. 

But then the geth had attacked Eden Prime, he’d stopped a plot to kill the Council, the Normandy had died in flames and Jacob had realised that ‘the big picture’ meant that the Alliance was going to keep shoving the dead in the closet and ignoring the smell. And Miranda Lawson had made him a job offer.

It wasn’t until much later, after the Collector Base, after Bahak, that he’d grasped how Cerberus had tailored not just the pitch ( _make a difference_ ) but what parts of Cerberus he’d be shown. They’d turned Normandy into a sanitised little Cerberus and done their best to sell it to everyone involved, but particularly their Commander.

Miranda tried to convince Shepard not to hand himself in after the Relay broke. But Jacob knew what it was like to want to do the right thing and still feel like your hands were bloody. He got that particular strain of sacrifice lingering in John’s blue eyes. So he just told him, “Be careful, man.” 

And they’d clasped hands and pulled each other into a hug that was too long but not nearly long enough. And Shepard’s voice was quiet, resigned, “You too, Jacob.” 

So Shepard had gone back to Earth, to the chains waiting for him, and Jacob had done his best to disappear, friendships severed as the Normandy crew went back to their governments or also went into hiding, the solid ground beneath his feet crumbling away bit by bit. 

Running wasn’t a way for a man to live. The scientists were a way to stand his ground again. 

Cerberus followed. They always followed. One man couldn’t fight an army, and with a hole in his side, he'd wondered if his luck had finally run out. But then there was Shepard. Always Shepard. An old man’s eyes in a young man’s face, and a Widow in his hands, every shot shattering a visor or piercing a vital spot. 

Shepard wanted him back on his ship. Hackett wanted him to accept his commission back. But Jacob Taylor was a man who’d always tried to do the right thing. And putting a Marine uniform back on just didn’t feel right, not with everything that had happened and his own association with the Marine Corps’ enemy. 

And Shepard, Jacob thought he got it. He just nodded, a faint look of _something_ in hard blue eyes and said, “Be careful, man.” 

So he ran missions for Hackett and led taskforces and saved people, and all the while kept an eye on the news about the Normandy and saw its captain where he could. He wondered how many people saw the scars the war was carving into John Shepard, the way the calm and warm strength Jacob had always associated with him had become something more brittle. 

“Hey, if you need to talk about anything,” He said to him during one of the times they were both on the Citadel at the same time. “I’m here, you know?”

Shepard was quiet. “Can we just...get a drink or something? Hang out? I don’t want to think about the war for a bit.” 

So they got a beer or three, played stupid arcade games, carved a little time out of all the chaos just for the two of them. Jacob caught a glance of Shepard he’d always remember - his face cast in orange, eyes alight with victory, as his avatar pummelled Jacob’s on the screen - and something in his chest twisted. I wish he’d smile like that more often.

But the war didn’t wait for anyone. It kept going, day after day, week after week, grinding Commander Shepard beneath its weight.

Until a moment in which Jacob was alone in the ruins surrounded by husks and a gun close to melting in his hands. He thought about what he’d promised Shepard. _There’s a bar in Rio I gotta show you._ He clung to that, ripped husks off their feet with biotics. _Gotta show John that bar, he’ll like it. He’ll smile._ Logic told him that Shepard might be dead and that bar doesn’t exist anymore, but he grabbed that thought of the future with both hands and fought -

Survived.

So did Shepard, though it was a near thing and it hurt Jacob’s chest to see a man so alive limp and sedated. Hackett asked Jacob where he wanted to go, but there was just one place he _needed_ to be, and that was right here. 

When John was well enough to be taken in his wheelchair outside of the hospital, Jacob took him up to a place where you could see most of the repaired parts of London, like a healing wound. 

“Lemonade?” John asked when Jacob handed him the can.

He shrugged, “I know it’s not quite a little bar in Rio and craft beer, but…” 

“It’s enough,” John said quietly and Jacob restrained himself from asking to help as he struggled to pop the tab. A man like John needed a bit of space, to know he could still do some things for himself, otherwise he’d feel smothered. 

It was hard though. Always was. Watching him struggle, watching his face pale with pain. When you loved someone you wanted to help. 

When you loved someone.

Oh. 

“Am I reading this wrong?” Shepard asked, voice steady. 

“No, I don’t think so.” Jacob said just as calmly. The sun was beginning to dip down, spreading dusk across the sky. 

“Okay.” 

Jacob carefully leant down, reading those clear blue eyes for hesitation or pain and finding none, until their lips met, warm with John’s stubble scratching his cheeks. The twisting in his chest seemed to release, replaced with a pleasant, tingling warmth. After a moment he reluctantly pulled back, settling back beside the wheelchair but this time with one of his hands holding onto John’s remaining one. Anything else would have to wait. But a guy like John was more than worth waiting for. 

“So. Where do we go from here?” Shepard asked. _What are we? What will we do now the war is over?_

“I don’t know,” Jacob said honestly, feeling the gun-worn calluses on Shepard’s hand, trying to remember when he’d last just sat somewhere, holding someone else’s hand. “But I want to be going somewhere with you.” 

The sunset spilled in bright reds and oranges across the sky. Jacob still didn’t know what the future held, whether he could make a difference in a world still shattered by war. But with Shepard beside him, it finally felt like he had firm ground beneath his feet. They’d work it out.


End file.
